How IBM Watson can help developers and entrepreneurs with its services

To accelerate growth of cognitive computing, IBM has made Watson Developer Cloud available on public domain.

January 16, 2016 19:06 IST

Technology giant IBM has been helping people from all walks of life,, especially developers who are prototyping and building Cloud-based cognitive computing applications, through Watson since its launch in 2011.

With an aim to accelerate the growth of cognitive computing, the company made Watson Developer Cloud available on public domain, allowing a growing ecosystem of developers, advertising professionals, businessmen, bankers, students, entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts and people from various professions to use this advanced cognitive computing platform.

Namda Kambhatla, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Senior Manager Cognitive Solutions & Services, said at Blogger Rountable on IBM Watson Ecosystem that Watson can answer any question with data-driven insights and one can get started with Watson Developer Cloud online.

Watson APIs are cognitive, which means they are a level deeper than artificial intelligence and bring more sophisticated capabilities that augment how humans live, work and interact with an increasingly digital world. It draws on advances in natural language processing, machine learning and deep learning, thus, help provide capabilities that span language, speech, vision and data insights.

Kambhatla said that IBM has partnership with several firms and social media like Facebook and Twitter, which help provide data that is used to find more insight and details of the subject. He, however, said that accuracy depends on self disclosure as there are chances of some individuals giving a completely different picture of themselves in virtual world.

Kambhatla described Watson Developer Cloud as one stop shop for developers. The developers can also bring their own data to many of the services, to help train Watson about a specific domain or industry and customise API models to speed up and simplify the development of cognitive apps.

For instance, Watson can be used to help play relevant advertisements anywhere, be it shopping complex, roadside or amusement park based on image of people in the vicinity, as it can guess approximate age, gender, etc.

IBM services have been increased significantly over the years and Watson Ecosystem has grown to more than 500 startups and companies that are embedding sophisticated cognitive computing APIs and services into their businesses across 17 industries and business disciplines like finance, advertising and marketing, healthcare, commerce and retail, education and learning, veterinary medicine and hospitality.